if there is no ethics at the ethics commission, there is no ethics. it has do with all kinds of disclosure i would like to get, but if he is just going to tell them before the investigation, what is the use? >> any other public comment? is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> so moved. >> second. >> all in favor? >> aye. >> hearing none, the meeting is adjourned. [ gavel ]hub. >> hi, i'm jean yes my name is jean and sometimes, people call me sir, girl. san francisco has served our sewer system and it's no square feet it's a matter of time. that's why we're planning major upgrades public health depends on it that. see how this important work is done. i was fascinated by it. we're going to creek. i would recycle you to come up and see the sewer system in minnesota that's why we see this through the plant. a lot of people don't realize how much work sgo goes into cleaning the water were. we offer free service to san >> this is a dpw corporation yard. i work for the bureau of street environmental services used to be street cleaning. we are a new age.

if there is no ethics at the ethics commission, there is no ethics. it has do with all kinds of disclosure i would like to get, but if he is just going to tell them before the investigation, what is the use? >> any other public comment? is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> so moved. >> second. >> all in favor? >> aye. >> hearing none, the meeting is adjourned. [ gavel ]. >> hay there san francisco this is the final buzz but that's hard to building that january was here let's have some improvement this is the recycled art exhibit the unique program is for local artist for discard materials from the endangers. so come check outline that's right masterpieces this tuesday from 5 to 9 and this thursday go for the best life night every thursday night we have in the course event take home some art pieces and get back to the new wave d g. for this thursday just 10 bucks and saturday come out to at&t for the giant fan effort from temple to 5. you can also take festivity and get autographs if you're a baseball fan and one of the san francisco giant it is

and that it was privileged as part of the ethics commission investigation or as part of the controller's investigation? >> well, i think we -- mr. givner, correct me if i'm wrong, i think we determined that both are. i think these emails may have been as part of our file, the commission's file. but it relates to both. >> okay. thank you. >> >> commissioner hayon? >> my question is in terms of the opinion that has been rentered by miss herrick, are we bound by that dismissing or is it simply advisory and we can decide what we think? >> we are not bound by her memo. we made our decisions at the october 22nd meeting. and as part of that, we asked her to review some additional documents, and she has now come back with a recommendation stating that she at least believes that. >> i read and understand that. >> so i don't think we're bound by this memo that she provided today or that is part of today's packet. >> but her opinion certainly should help us decide and vote on whether these three emails are public or not. is that right? >> right. >> and what i hear chair hur saying is that this memo

. >> can the ethics commission that speaks the english language tell me how miriam webster's definition of "willful" has not happened? this case has dragged on for two years? before it got her it was willful foot-dragging while winding its way through sotf. as far as i'm concerned you are foot-dragging in agendizing my complaint almost a year after it was referred from sotf. that you are foot-dragging was also willful. you could have scheduled a special meeting to move things along. it's willful that mr. st. croix and his staff, his deputy director, the entire ethics commission, i mean ethics department staff, more than likely had access to that file. they knew what was in that file. withholding it under misguided interpretation of 1040, and c3-699.13, all of that was willful. i think miss herrick made the recommendation that the material should be released, knowing that it was willfully withheld. that it existed in the file all along. and that had you, as commissioners, done an incamera review of the entire file enstead of just an incamera review of 20 pages after -- three months after

to be the most ethical of city hall bodies. and the fact that you have been repeatedly challenged on your own openness and willingness to disclose is, i'm afraid, the essence of this entire question. and my compliments to mr. menat shaw for being so fastidious and so faithful in his commendable pursuit of this issue. thank you very much. >> david pilpel speaking as an individual. several points i was not on the task force at the time this matter was heard. so i'm continuing to speak on the matter having not heard it when it was before the task force. also i believe i raised at the october meeting this particular nuance about emailed communications that might have gone between the commission staff and the controller's staff that were not part of either investigative file, which is what led to this. for that either thank you or i apologize or just working through this. i think it is pretty clear that all of these records are public records. i think the question is whether these are records subject to disclosure and to that end whe

>> good evening and welcome to the regular meeting of the san francisco ethics commission. we'll begin by take the roll. commissioner studley. >> thank you all. here. >> commissioner hayon? >> here. >> commissioner hur? >> here? >> commissioner liu? >> here. >> all members being present, first item on the agenda is public comment on matters appearing or not appearing on matters of the ethics commission. >> good afternoon, commissioners and of course, stop the corporate rate of the public library and don't accept money from the friends of the library. you may remember that rights were violated on june 4th, 2009. you made a finding that she was guilty of official misconduct and made a reference to the mayor that the mayor should consider terminating her appointment on july 12th, 2011. you followed up with a direct request to the mayor, that he respond to you in some -- with some sort of explanation on september 24th, 2012. i followed that up with an immediate disclosure request to the mayor on december 3rd, requesting any documents reflecting any internal consideration or any

we're going to be on the ethical. position of do no harm. what training do we have and interrogations and police interrogations or any of those kinds of issues in two thousand and six after much internal debate the american psychiatric association passed a resolution stating that it was not appropriate for psychiatry's to directly assist in the interrogation of detainees these american psychiatric association just drew a lawyer and said now. and actually many i was contacted by a number of military psychiatrist say thank you because now we can say to a superiors i don't want to go against the the policy position and the ethical. rules of the association though the standards of the a.m.a. and the american psychiatric association are as they should be strong unequivocal prohibitions against direct involvement in interrogation but the fact remains that neither of those associations have taken ethical action against members who allegedly or directly involved in the abuse of prisoners in u.s. custody. only one professional association approved if

where we're going to be on the ethical. position of do no harm. what training do we have and interrogations and police interrogations or any of those kinds of issues in two thousand and six after much internal debate the american psychiatric association passed a resolution stating that it was not appropriate for psychiatry is to directly assist in the interrogation of detainees. these american psychiatric association just drew a lawyer and said now. and actually many i was contacted by a number of military psychiatrists a vacuum because now we can say to a superiors i don't want to go against the the policy position and the ethical. rules of the association though the standards of the a.m.a. and the american psychiatric association are as they should be strong unequivocal prohibitions against direct involvement in interrogation but the fact remains that neither of those associations have taken ethical action against members who allegedly or directly involved in the abuse of prisoners in u.s. custody. only one professional association approved if it

what is an example of one of the more robust state ethics commissions in the country? nnecticut had strong state ethics commissions. host: what is strong? guest: what that usually boils down to is they have full-time staff and enough full-time staff to deal with the problems that are brought to them. they are transparent in that you know what they're doing. they have investigators who may have an auditting or law enforcement background. and they will have subpoena power. and they're able to operate independently without having exclusive oversight coming from the legislators themselves who are, after all, the subject of the work that they're doing. host: on twitter. guest: what we looked at were various disclosure rules for legislators, governors, and members of their offices and family. generally, because legislators are part-time you want to know what the job is, the full-time job of your legislator, what their other assets are, where they're getting their income from, and what the jobs may be of their spouses and what their investments are. because transparency goes t

. >> i don't know that it, if at some point it will make it to, i think the ethics commission but i was wondering where they were with the proposed legislation, the chiu herrera legislation, where is the city with that? >> i know that they were revising it. and i am not sure exactly when they intend to. >> okay. >> and that is correct. it does not have the committee schedule, but it actually has not had it the full examination in a public hearing for public comment, but i think that people want to move it forward fairly soon. >> okay, thank you. >> and at some point, i would like to discuss something which i actually saw in or on the materials last time, having to do with the executive director's power to dismiss complaints. and it is on the content calendar and one of us can pull it off if we want and it is nothing to do with your power to do that. it is just the options that are available because i saw one man and i am not going to go into it because it was on last week. and among the options, it talked about that you would exercise that power, if, for example, it was being investigat

in regards to the attachment, and the form for the certificate of ethics training. that is involved and attached and this died and i believe that there is a mistake, in the first bullet point, where it says please review the following to determine when you must complete the training. it says if you are completing training in 2013 you must complete your ethics training within two years of your last training and here is where i think that the mistake is, for example, if you are satisfied in your training on march 3, 2013, you must complete another ethics training session by march second, 2014 and that is a contradiction. if it says that you have two years that should be, you must complete another ethics training session by march second 2015. and i think that should... and >> we will change it. >> okay. >> i figured this is an update. >> it is an update, the one that i filled out which is the one from before and actually had it correct for two years. the problems were not with the forms just historically this one. >> any public comment on this matter? >> you can actuall

in two thousand find it followed the recommendations of its task force on psychological ethics and national security or and. so for us the question is not whether psychologists may be involved in these process he's it how psychologists may be involved in these activities in an ethical manner we know from records and accounts of what went on at the task force that there was never was there a question a discussion about whether it's ethical for psychologists to participate in these interrogations that that was assumed from the very first moment the a.p.a. has never except when absolutely forced to by by the public record ignalina that they're even problems in the policy psychologist profession has been intimately involved with the military intelligence establishment something that sort of invisible to all marge number of practical psychologist. a.p.a. officials appointed a task force guaranteed to approve psychologist involvement in detainee interrogations. dr morgan banks helped to write the standard operating procedures manual for biskit interrogation doctors dr scott shoemaker attended the

yet what happens is they pass they rules and they go to the ethics commission and the ethics commission pro forms will say sure, we'll let you work for this company who you just arranged for 100 thousand or a million dollars contract with and they are offering you a job based on the fact that you have one hand in the city's pocket and 94 you are going to have one hand in theirs. they leave with proprietary information and they leaf and know what all the department has and they give that information to their new employer freely. the laws are there to prevent that. the ceqa laws and especially zoning laws are to protect the neighborhood. and this has already been said. if you are going to start making little exceptions here and there, i find there is exceptions for people who have connections to somebody in city hall or worse yet people who have connections with somebody who passed a check or give a new job. just look back to jimmy jan who worked for the planning department and you found forgery. they should be followed. president david chiu: next speaker? >> good afternoon. my name is ba

. >> the january, meeting of the san francisco ethics commission will now come to order. first thing that i would like to wish all of my fellow commissionerers a happy new year, it is kind of the end of january, but it is still the beginning of the year and we have not seen each other for quite some time and i hope that you had a great holiday and it is good to see you again, and happy new year to all of you in the audience as well and we are glad that you could join us today. roll call? commissioner renne? >> present. >> commissioner andrews? >> here. >> commissioner hur? >> here. >> commissioner keen, n >> here. >> are there matters that we are going to be discussing or do not appear on the agenda at this time? >> good evening commissioners my name is dr. derek kur a whistle blower, please note bill 496 that took effect this month has expanded protections for whistle blowers and it prohibits anticipation retaliation, whereby the employers retaliate because they believe that an employee may disclose information to authorities. it reminds us that retaliation sometimes proc

to get the smoking gun, you need to do an investigation and this is what the ethics commission does not do. they are very superficial investigations and they bend over backwards to give the respondent the benefit of the doubt and they are swayed by the empathy for the public officials. and that is something that the rest of us don't get. but, thank you for all participation and discussing it is very encouraging. >> and as i said before, this disturbs me very much. and i am the director of environmental advocacy and i have a good track record and i am very well known and your commissioners, superficially, are trying to adjudicate something without diving into it. and into this, situation, and we have organizations in san francisco, and we don't have to go to green for all. and if you go a little deeper, then the new direct for green for all that replaced juliet ellis and his wife, now works for her. how did that happen? >> so, if you commissioners superficially assume that your staff did a wonderful job, i think you don't know the difference between the reality and the fluff. that is too

. >> because you have the political as well as the ethical state and the criminal. >> right. >> we're looking at this through three or four different angles here. >> yeah. it strikes me it's the fourth time there has been sort of a public hint at a desire for immunity here. one was in when initially the subpoenas went out and wildstein's came back. raises all sorts of lurid possibilities. and to hold out wildstein as sort of being the guy who could potentially connect all the dots. ten he takes the fifth. and his lawyer says cloak him in immunity, he'll be able to answer a lot more questions. and a week after that his lawyer says we want immunity. he'll be able to talk more. we have four instances of him publicly putting in a bid for immunity. the wild card, though, in all this is first of all, like you say, what can he give the u.s. attorney? that's ultimately for the u.s. attorney to decide. can he give him enough hard evidence that makes it worth giving him immunity. >> that's a federal crime. >> right. the second part is david wildstein is not the only player here. what can bridge

now, i guess that i don't understand the areas of jurisdiction between the state fppc and the san francisco ethics commission. so, this case was brought to both of us, and the fppc has already decided and ruled on it and now, we are about to do that. >> right. >> and the fppc is part of the settlement, and has to do the violation of the state law, and our part of the settlement and has to do with the violations of the local law. >> okay. >> commissioner andrews you had a comment? >> well, we are hearing from, commissioner keane. and i guess that i was a little, struck by when mr. st. croix said that we were going to find ourselves in a unique situation, by discussing this publicly. i was not clear about that and it feels like, it feels like we should have some amount of participation on the front end that does not have us here. and i don't know what that is and i don't know, at what point that happens, but because it was a public hearing, at the fppc, is that right? >> yes. >> it was..., >> yes. >> it just feels like we are being backed into the corner of having to have a discussion that is either

conduct by taking steps such as raising awareness of the importance of ethicalr strengthening the system of evaluation of employees conduct within the firm. financial services executives certainly champion the importance of ethical conduct so they understand that it's something very important. it's something they aspire to. and they see it as something that can actually help risk proof the industry from the kind of crises that we've seen recently. > >it's interesting because it shows some measure of tension. they want to work for companies that have good ethical standards but at the same time, applying them to themselves is a bit different. this is the attitude at the top among the executive ranks, what does it say about the culture in these companies---banks and investment houses? > >i think that's actually one of the things that we really look at at some depth in the report and that's the idea that in the years leading up to the crisis thanks to a lot of mergers and acqusitions, there was a sense that big banks lost a universal cohesive culture. as part of tha

officer in this case and so we believe that there is a conflict of interest and a violation of the ethics code, of the city and council of san francisco. and we believe that this board can take action on it and can take disciplinary action, towards this agency, and its employees for failing to disclose this information. and that we believe that this relationship between the city and arbor well goes back beyond 2013, we have found information that the city has been doing business with arbor well as far back as 2009 when they okayed some work on behalf of dpw the department of public works to remove the trees up at the cpmc campus and so we want to bring that to your attention and we believe, that there is grounds, for rehearing on our request. we believe that you should hold this agency responsible for failing to disclose their relationship with arbor well, in the contracts that were awarded involves a removal of 144 trees in golden gate park and we heard one of the managers state on the record at the last hearing that he does not make any money from removal of trees he is making over a ha

how did you work through the ethics of that? i came away thinking this was actually a public service that people learn a lot about the way their senior government leaders make very difficult decisions both republican and democrat but you are disclosing something and i have no doubt that both presidents didn't anticipate that this would be in the book. how did you work through that? >> well i think first of all, i think modern presidents have pretty realistic expectations about what will be written, but that said, from my standpoint there were a couple of things that were important. the first is if you actually read the book, the conversations i describe almost entirely paint these presidents in a positive light. because it shows them pushing back against the military, asking hard questions, not being being -- not allowing themselves to be spoonfed information and not just acquiescing because some guy with four stars on his shoulders said we ought to do thus and so so it shows these presidents doing what i think americans would ho

>> the chair is also in ethics. it's the howard hawks chair and leadership and ethics. the grade i would give him a b-plus. high marks for the way he handled the press conference today and for taking quick action, but i think that he could have done more in his administration to make sheer thuz kinds of things don't happen. >> so you sort of -- reading between the line, don't mean to put words in your mouth, professor, you seem to be downgrading him a little bit on the ethical part of the ledger? right? >> i do. yes, i am. i think that one of the issues that he might be having is, and the interview that i read, he said that he spoke with his employees and gave them one hour to tell them if they had additional information. to me that sounds like a bit of an intim-tation and fear climate, and if he can be more open and allow people to speak more openly in his administration, it would help avoid these kinds of issues. >> bob, you've worked with powerful people in the business world, and know that sort of the dynamics of office holders in a corporate setting. is it credible

journal of essays on public policy and political thought and i'm also a fellow at a think tank called the ethics & public policy center here in washington. >> what does -- what do you do? >> well, so editing the magazine means really editing the magazine. it's a quarterly journal. we run long essays, 5,000 words, 6,000 words, by experts for the most part, academics, think tank people, intellectuals, you might say again, about complicated public questions for the most part. some of them are very practical, how do you fix social security? what do we do about education? some of them are deeper, questions about american principles, american ideals or about the challenges of this moment. my job is to find those writers, to have them write for us, to edit their work, to makes sure that it's read, to get it noticed. and as a think tank scholar, really my job is to study public questions, to write about them, to try to influence the public debate in various ways. most of my work on that front is in the area of health care and of budget questions, but also i try to work some on, again, deeper philosophic

this is the type of scandal ever happens. this began as an ethics scandal last march and as you've noted it's no terminal full blown fourteen helped criminal charge of the mcdonald's poll by the way bob mcdonnell and his wife. i have been a charge with live essentially pride parade and they are going to be arraigned in court on friday right i guess she's in charge as well and that she clearly from that long this mean we're out there benefited in one way or another i've got some fancy things there i got an mc donald now he's sad is that nearly every elected official would be charged for getting benefits from donors said does he have a point there is no you see this for the attitude when you come from a state that doesn't have proper ethics restrictions of any of the officials like open title and his wife actually come to believe that they are entitled to these types of gifts. they believe that that's how they that's just how business is done. and the end it really isn't and that there are about to find out that it is unacceptable i want to but when t

for free were going to improve the alleys and adding after the ethics sidewalks. the goal of those projects is to facilitate action and promote pedestrian life and ultimately community pride. the yerba buena is proud to work with the city and the composure to your memory to design and implement this important project. on behalf of the yerba buena and the property owners that fund it i want to thank mayor ed lee and supervisor kim and their amazing support for the yerba buena work to help improve the quality of life. i want to thank spur this gentleman has been an amazing companion and deserves the credit for the violation and implementation of those projects. i want to competence my appreciation to the staff our director of neighborhoods projects that do heavy lifting to fte get those projects implemented. the amount of work you can't imagine. i want to thank our friends at the mrorp tomorrow. one of the skeptic things we've worked with this gentleman shawn. didn't if you will please welcome shawn (clapping.) thank you we've been out here for three or four days on

what is an example of one of the more robust state ethics commissions in the country? est: we found that states like washington and connecticut lad strong state ethics commissions. host: what is strong? guest: what that usually boils down to is they have full-time staff and enough full-time staff to deal with the problems that are brought to them. they are transparent in that you know what they're doing. they have investigators who may have an auditting or law enforcement background. and they will have subpoena power. and they're able to operate independently without having exclusive oversight coming from the legislators themselves who are, after all, the subject of the work that they're doing. ost: on twitter. guest: what we looked at were various disclosure rules for legislators, governors, and members of their offices and family. generally, because legislators are part-time you want to know what the job is, the full-time job of your legislator, what their other assets are, where they're getting their income from, and what the jobs may be of their spouses and what the

the ethical, moral, religious decisions we face and the costs those decisions have for us all.till with us is arthur kaplan at nyu and from san diego wendy patrick an ordained minister and a deputy district attorney. from sacramento michael weinberg, senior policy adviser for the bay area council, a trade group that includes kaiser permanente and blue shield of california. if i was to suggest we make all the decisions based on cost, i would be dismissed as heartless, craven, and an awful person. yet, if i was to suggest we keep everybody ali in the hope somebody will wake up, that would be considered ruinous and illogical. what role should money play in the conversations about it and the decisions we make for ourselves and others? >> yeah. not easy questions today. i think one of the first things i want to emphasize is that it isn't always entirely about money. there have been studies of a lot of patients in end of life care showing that a high degree of intervention not only gives them a terrible quality of life but shortens their life. this isn't just a question of rationing

if you thought the new jersey state ethics commission was going to be the one to get to the bottom of what's going on with the christie administration's multiplying scandals, you might want to think again. this week, the ethics commission, the group that would eventually rule on any complaints filed against chris christie or anyone in his administration approved in a closed-door vote christie's recommendation for the executive director of the ethics commission. susana esparza guerrero, a longtime christie loyalist who spent eight years at the law firm with close ties to christie and where christie worked before becoming u.s. attorney. former counsel in the governor's office who served with all nine christie aides subpoenaed in bridge gate. dawn zimmer, the account given that the christie administration with held sandy funds from hoboken to punish zimmer for not expediting a private development. the "times" writing e-mails and interviews made clear the development wary mayor was coming under increasing pressure from politically connected lawyers working for the rockefeller group and fr

if you thought the new jersey state ethics commission was going to be the one to get to the bottom oft's going on with the christie administration's multiplying scandals, you might want to think again. this week, the ethics commission, the group that would eventually rule on any complaints filed against chris christie or anyone in his administration approved in a closed-door vote christie's recommendation for the executive director of the ethics commission. susana esparza guerrero, a longtime christie loyalist who spent eight years at the law firm with close ties to christie and where christie